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SJ River Harbor Authority Votes to Disband

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Virginia Sansone gaveled the St. Joseph River Harbor Authority meeting to a close this afternoon for the last time in history, just minutes after the board voted to disband, dissolving their control over the busy commercial and recreational harbor in favor of handing things off to local control to St. Joseph and Benton Harbor. 

Everyone involved called it a bittersweet moment, including Berrien County Community & Economic Development Director Dan Fette who told me after the meeting, "It’s a little bittersweet. The authority has been a lot of fun to work with. They’ve been supportive of anything at the staff level that we’ve tried to propose doing, and they’ve been very helpful in their advocacy role to keep the harbor dredged, and to keep recreational boating viable." However, Fette notes, "The local communities own most of the property around it, they control the zoning, they control the development plans, and it only seems appropriate that they now should have some input on an ongoing basis as to what’s going to develop and happen with the harbor."

Fette has met with community leaders on several occasions including a session with the City of St. Joseph where he handed over multiple documents regarding maintenance and dredging of the local harbor. He has also met with Benton Harbor officials and commercial dock owners and says they all appear to be ready to step up and take control of the harbor going forward.

He has also facilitated meetings with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who are expected to authorize anywhere from $750,000 to $1.125-million for dredging the harbor in the year ahead. He also notes that the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has given every indication that they will approve permits to allow that dredge work to continue in the spring and summer and most easement agreements are either in place or ready to be approved. 

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Having accomplished all of that gives both cities a bit of breathing room in that they won't have to do a lot of heavy lifting right off the bat, and can launch the process for ongoing work in the harbor for 2018 as they develop their own plans for what they'd like to see happen in the harbor.

Harbor Master Larry LeValley has been a long time member of the Harbor Authority board, and while he won't have final tallies on commercial traffic in the harbor until the end of the year because there are still ships arriving here with loads, he's projecting somewhere between 450 to 500,000 tons of materials have arrived in the harbor in 2016. That's a solid year in his books, but he told his colleagues today, "I won't be satisfied until we hit 750,000 tons!"

While the Harbor Authority has officially been disbanded today, Fette promised that his staff will be available for however long is needed as the process of local control advances. 

LeValley questioned whether the lower number of $750,000 would be enough to do the job, saying he's "a little dubious" of that figure, but Fette says "Barring any massive silting problem arising," they should have sufficient funding to dredge in 2017. He also called his meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers in Cincinnati recently, "one of true optimism for the first time in probably ten years" that they're garnering the funds to help address the backlog of unfinished business that has plagued them.

The authority reviewed current Lake Michigan water levels and Fette says they are projecting levels to continue to be above historical levels "which is good for boating and is good for shipping," so the county is pleased with what they're seeing. 

Chair Sansone and board member Mamie Yarbrough distributed certificates of appreciation offered by County Administrator Bill Wolf to the board thanking them for their years of dedicated service. Wolf also called the day a bittersweet one, adding, "This board has just performed an outstanding job for many, many years…but we’ve just reached a point where we believe that passing the baton over to another municipality, primarily the city of St. Joseph or Benton Harbor, is the way to move forward so that they can look at the next 10 or 20 years and decide what’s best for the harbor."

I asked Virginia what she would like to see happen in the local harbor if she could wave a magic wand and she told me she,"Would like to see all the shipping moved over to one side of the harbor, as had been proposed, so that we could develop the other side, with more parks and recreation type facilities, but it’s always fun for the people to come down here and see the big ships come in. I know I always got a thrill out of it. I can hear them from my house with their horns and hearing the bridges go up and down. It would be nice if that would happen."

While Andrews University's Urban Studies and Architectural department has delivered a robust and dynamic view of what the local harbor has the potential to be, plans for the future will now be in the control of the people closest to the water's edge — the people of St. Joseph and Benton Harbor. Stay tuned. 

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